Fate Seemed to be Finding Loopholes
by Aldesina
Summary: She turns and lets them pass, watching as the couple makes their way down the path and heads toward Mr. Gold's house. Thinking how strange fate can be when dealing the cards. And how lucky people are when they find a loophole.


**Author's Note:**

Oh Rumbelle, Oh Rumbelle, how you persuade me to write!

Meant to take place just about a week after Episode 14. And is AU and slightly OOC. Hopefully not too much so. And of course, I own Nothing! Just love the show and its characters.

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><p><strong>Fate Seemed to be Finding Loopholes<strong>

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><p>"<em>People aren't going to put up with this!"<em>

Mr. Gold's mouth turned up a corner just slightly at the memory of those words. No it seemed people certainly were not. Specifically, people weren't going to put up with him anymore. Being seated here was evident of that. The Sheriff had reassured him that this situation would be temporary. As soon as she calmed everyone down she would ensure that "proper procedures" against him would be taken.

Because in her mind, those procedures and proceedings would be so much better than "this."

Leaning heavily on his cane Mr. Gold gets up and slowly does a circle around his cell. 8 paces forward, 8 paces right, and again, and again, and Ah ha! Full circle, back to his seat in the corner. He looks up at the little window; the only source of light in this dreary little cell and sits back down again letting the events of the past few weeks wash over his mind.

It's certainly been exciting in Storybrooke lately.

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><p>It all started rolling downhill with his first arrest, right after he beat a buffoon of a man into the hospital. Same man that uttered the words that ran through his head. Same man that claimed he had no idea whom he was referring to. Of course not, she's not a part of this world, how could he know? Getting out of that scuffle was easy. No one presses charges against Mr. Gold after all.<p>

And then the mysterious disappearance of Kathryn Nolan. He chuckled a bit at this, he had a perfectly good idea of where she had gone, no doubt into one of Regina's hidey holes. Leaving this town in the middle of the night was just plain stupid. Although the part of her dear Frederick finding the abandoned car was unexpected. He would have to examine the curse a bit more carefully. Despite his best efforts, fate seemed to be finding loopholes.

Mr. Gold couldn't fathom the thought that his current situation was brought about by Leroy; the town drunk. Leroy, who knocked out a good quadrant of the town's power supply to sell a lot of ugly candles so the nuns wouldn't be evicted. Leroy, who when confronted by Sheriff Swan the next day about his actions proclaimed to the world that he was pushed into doing it by Mr. Gold. Desperate to help out his friends because Mr. Gold; _"Didn't like nuns! Who doesn't like nuns?"_ Tenants were tenants after all and he had a fairly specific lease agreement with them.

But vandalism was vandalism after all, and as it turns out, Sheriff Swan wanted to run an investigation. Where exactly did Leroy knock out the power? What did he use? And what was the precise extent of the damages caused? In her zeal to discover all these little facts the good Sheriff stumbled upon blueprints for the town's power grid and some interesting cross town wiring.

As it turns out the quadrant Leroy knocked out was also connected to a wing in Storybrooke Hospital. This wouldn't have been so peculiar had that wing actually appeared anywhere in the hospital blueprints. Or if anyone, Oh let's say a nurse, or an orderly would have reported the outage to the local power company. No, instead it seemed that all conventional efforts of asking for help had been "overlooked" by the hospital; making it particularly suspicious to Sheriff Swan.

Another investigation was opened, where the Sheriff then discovered that the mayor herself had stepped in to "aid" the hospital. Having been there for that conversation, he found it spectacular and was surprised that Emma was able to gain the upper hand so easily. He should have been wary of that then, Regina had seemed far too eager to sweep the odd hospital wiring under the carpet, frazzled even. If he wasn't so caught up with wanting vengeance for recent events, he would have noticed.

"_As the town's mayor I'm well within my right to do so..."_ Regina had said.

"_And as the town's mayor you can also explain why the electricity for that part of the hospital was wired to a grid across town when the rest of the hospital is wired to a different grid."_ Emma had countered.

Regina rolled her eyes at the Sheriff. _"The back-up generators of the hospital are also wired to a different grid, in a different part of town. Are you going to investigate that as well?"_

"_No, however I will investigate why the hospital has no records of that wing. Why the staff does not know of its existence, and more importantly, why there is no record of any blueprints, payments, transactions or bills in regards to that wing." _

That momentarily halted Regina, and perked up his interest.

"_No records at all Madame Mayor? Did Sheriff Swan actually manage to find evidence to levy embezzlement charges against you, again?"_ Regina shot daggers at him with her eyes, but shook herself off and smirked at Emma.

"_Miss Swan…"_

"_Sheriff," _Emma corrected.

"_Fine, Sheriff Swan, since you still haven't been at your post for very long I will once again remind you that as the mayor I have the right to keep certain transactions private at my discretion." _And she smiled even more. _"Unless you want a repeat of what happened at the last town council meeting?"_

Emma rolled her eyes. _"If you're done reminding us that you're the mayor, I'd like to see that wing."_

"_Out of the question!"_

"_Oh but Madame Mayor," _Emma was the one to smile now. _"I will once again remind you, that as the town's Sheriff, I've been looking through a certain town charter that Mr. Gold loaned me. And it seems that amidst a possible felony investigation charge, even the Mayor has to be accommodating." _

"_What felony?" _Regina's eyes had sharpened to slits and Mr. Gold had chuckled, Check.

"_Why for the misappropriation of government funds and resources, of course. It is a public hospital after all." _And Mate.

Satisfied that Regina had lost this round he had nodded at Emma and left to attend his shop. Yes a mysterious hospital wing was intriguing, and he didn't like the idea of Regina holding any secrets here, but he had other matters at hand to attend to at the moment. Since they had both admitted their past histories to one another, there was an infinite amount of planning that had to be done. Who would have thought he would end up in that damnable hospital wing, 3 days later.

After he left a sputtering Regina and Sheriff Swan, they went to settle the matter in front of the town council the next morning. The Council had then demanded it to see the hospital wing. Questions like; "Where was the funding coming from? Who worked there and why? Did they actually keep patients off the record down there?" spouted up and whipped the town into a feeding frenzy. Mr. Gold had paid little mind to the gossip those next few days. Oh yea, he'd let Regina get cooked by this little scandal, and then swoop in and take what he wanted.

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><p>"<em>He made me do it! There was simply no other way! You all saw what he did to my truck, to me!"<em>

Two days after the town council forced Regina to show them the hidden hospital wing, there was Moe French, in front of his shop at the head of what looked like a small mob. Mr. Gold just smirked, Mob justice indeed. Every single one of them owed something to him. So they'd cart him off to jail as Sheriff Swan had, and she would let him go because it was the "right thing to do."

"_Another attempt to thwart me from collecting your monthly rent?" _ He had drawled out.

"_No Gold, you might be able to bully us individually, but people just aren't gonna put up with this anymore"_ Moe French was showing some spine.

"_GET HIM!" _Leroy had shouted.

And in an act that surprised even Mr. Gold, the crowd grabbed him.

They threw him in the back of that ridiculous rose truck and hauled him off towards the hospital.

"_Put him in the basement!"_ Someone else had yelled, it looked an awful lot like Billy the Mechanic. So down he went, dragged and bumped along until he was thrown in a cell with a small window and padded cot which had been bolted to the wall.

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><p>While down here he had heard the most interesting rumors from rumblings just beyond his door. They found a girl in the cell. Ah, so that's where she kept Mrs. Nolan! And the town, outraged, turned on Regina. Apparently the girl looked like she had been locked up there for years, as opposed to just a few weeks. It was just his misfortune that Sheriff Swan was still guarding the Mayor's mansion when the mob descended upon his shop. Thwarted by the police at the Mayor's, they had left in a rage, jilted of justice and decided to go for another target; him.<p>

"_He made me do it! There was simply no other way!"_

Now a different set of words haunted Mr. Gold's memory. He hadn't made the fat buffoon do anything as of late. Their initial contract regarding the truck was signed by Moe French gladly, quickly, so eager was he to get his hands on the money. He smiled to himself, not an ounce of warmth in his smile. Once he was out of here, that florist would really learn the meaning of the words "No other way."

He also overheard that due to current circumstances, their Madame Mayor was taking a leave of absence for the next month pending the charges that the Sheriff was bringing upon her. Specifically in the form of being under house arrest. This of course did not apply to Henry who was happily spending time with his birth mother. A pity those charges wouldn't stick. Aside from himself, Regina also had nearly every city appointed official within her grasp. Mr. Gold imagined that Emma and Henry were probably spending as much time as possible in each other's company, and her promise of getting him out soon was going to be delayed.

So when the Sheriff knocked on the door and shook him out of his thoughts, peeking through the door slot, it was unexpected. Opening the heavy stainless steel door Emma entered, leaving the door ajar behind her and he could see that his supposed guards were absent. Probably sent away by the good Sheriff for a moment of privacy.

"_Ah, Sheriff Swan, come to make sure the guards didn't beat their prisoner?"_ Emma didn't speak. Instead she regarded him with an odd expression on her face. Trying to divine his intentions again, no doubt. He studied that face, with features so similar to Ms. Blanchard's that it was comical that neither of them noticed it so far.

"_The mob has dissipated, and they're letting you go home now."_

"_Yes, how magnanimous of them, a pity the members of that mob will find magnanimity a trait I don't possess"_ Mr. Gold stretches his legs idly and watches the Sheriff as she sighs, and opens her mouth again. Probably something else about making threats.

"_She wants to talk to you"_ Emma started.

"_Regina can go piss off."_ He said with a smile and leaned his back against the cell wall, closing his eyes.

"_Not her, your former fiancée."_ And his eyes snapped back open.

"_You have an odd sense of humor to go with that odd sense of luck, Sheriff Swan."_ Emma leaned back against the wall directly across from Mr. Gold, still watching him.

"_Why?" _

"_Why, What?"_ He snorted.

"_Why is it funny that she should want to talk to you?"_ Emma walked up and stood in front of him. "_What is funny is why you never pressed charges or filed a missing persons report when she disappeared."_ At those words his mind spun, for during these twenty-eight years that he had to experience on repeat, he had never had a lover, taken on a mistress, or had any sort of dealings of that kind.

"_What are you talking about?"_ His voice lowered, and he gripped his cane hard. Emma didn't move.

"_I'm talking about the girl who we discovered three days ago, locked up in this very room in fact."_ She knelt down to look him in the eye. _"I'm talking about the girl who upon her release, ran down the street towards your shop, barefoot and in a hospital gown, calling your name. She didn't even bother to put on a coat, running right past the paramedics."_

He couldn't move, couldn't speak, just started and stared. . . .

"_She?"_

"_She _**_is _**_the woman you beat Moe French over isn't she? His daughter, the girl you tried to elope with until her father locked her away." _

And Mr. Gold couldn't take it anymore, bolting to his feet, cane up ready to swing.

"_SHUT UP! She is dead! She's been dead! What the hell do you know about…"_

And the words died in his throat as the woman he thought he lost forever stepped out from behind the door.

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><p>No… it couldn't be. It was a trick, an illusion that damnable Sheriff and Evil Souled Mayor schemed up together. He was sure of it. He sat back down heavily on the cot. All a trick.<p>

"_Rumple?"_ He closed his eyes. And she knew his name. The illusion knew who he was, who they were. He raised a hand up to his eyes, covering them, it couldn't be real. It couldn't be real.

"_Your name is Rumple Gold?"_ Sheriff Swan cut in.

"_Rupert…"_ The illusion said. _"Rupert Gold. Emma, can I speak to him alone, please?" _

He wouldn't look, wouldn't open his eyes, but heard Sheriff's Swans boots as they walked away leaving him alone with this illusion. Surely the spell wasn't strong enough to exist after she left the room.

Warm hands clasped themselves over the hand still on his cane, and his eyes flew open.

She was still there. Every contour of her face was just as he remembered; from the bright blue of her eyes, the perk of her nose, the outline of her lips. Still there, still in front of him, kneeling on the cold hard floor of what was once her jail. She stared up at him with tears in her eyes. Hope built up so strongly in his chest that he could barely breathe.

"_Belle?"_ And her smile widened.

"_I don't understand…"_ He started, and couldn't finish, couldn't figure it out. His mind went blank as he watched her stand, taking his cane from him. He watched her examine the head, swinging up the edge of it and studying the tip with her fingers. Her face cloud over with the same pain that was mirrored in his own face.

"_You don't understand?"_ And that smile that had lit the cell only moments ago dimmed.

"_No I'm the one that doesn't understand! Where were you? Where were you when I screamed your name?"_

"_Belle, I…"_ he staggered to his feet and reached out to her. She took a step back and he stopped.

"_And why? Why were you so willing to let our love go? Why didn't you believe me_?" She threw the cane behind her and it bounced against the padded cell wall.

"_I want answers, I want you to tell me why? I want answers, Goddamn you!"_ and she was upon him, pounding her fists against the front of his suit and grabbing at him, pushing against him and pulling him close at the same time. Without the cane his knees buckled underneath him and he knelt down hard in front of her. She still beat at his head, her fists hitting his shoulders repetitively, he deserved to be whipped with his own cane.

"_What could I do? I was told that you were dead. Dead and gone from the world. That you had flung yourself out of a tower after what your father did to you."_ He wailed grasping at her hands, holding her by her wrists so he could look at her face.

"_I could do nothing"_

"_You could have looked for me!"_ Belle jerked her hands away and pointed a finger into his face.

"_You, were always a step ahead. You always planned for the future. You. Should. Have. Known! You Should. Have. Looked!" _

"_I KNOW!"_ He looked down, burying his face in his hands. _"I know…"_

He could barely even bring himself to look at her. Half of him wanted to beg forgiveness from her, beg and beg until his voice rang hoarse, until the end of time, until the pain from her face ceased and she would become his Belle again. The Belle that kissed him so gently as he was spinning straw into gold. The other half was so afraid of looking up and finding out that it had been an illusion, that there was nothing there but an empty cell. But he could still see her feet through his hands, still hear her breathing.

He looked back up.

She was now sitting in front of him, staring at him as he was at her. Both trying to memorize each other as though they only had a limited amount of time before it was snatched away from them again.

"_What happened to you?"_ He finally asked, and Belle turned her head up towards that shaft of light coming down from that little window. His heart sank. How many times had she done that in the past 28 years? Had she been down here all this time?

"_I went back to my father's castle but he cast me out thinking that if he took me in you would bring back the Ogre Wars. Turned me away for the good of his Kingdom, he had said. I had nowhere to go so all I could do was wander. I eventually ended up sitting in a tavern the next kingdom over talking to a dwarf about how he needed to pursue his true love."_ She turned her head back towards him_. _

"_I told him of how fleeting it can be, and how you need to be with the one you love." _She shivers and he can only watch as fresh pain crosses her face.

"_And her men overheard me. They were looking for me, had known somehow that you threw me out and didn't want me anymore."_ Belle wraps her arms about herself, trying to shield herself from the memory.  
><em>"They took me the moment I walked out of that tavern and brought me back to the Queen."<em>

"_I…"_ He manages to choke out. _"She had you all this time." _

"_Yes..." _

He reaches his hand out and wonders if she'll reach back. She does, and they touch as though they had never done so before. Their fingers entwine, gentle, both afraid to move further.

"_She told me you died, and all I could think was that you were right."_ Belle's eyes moved away from their hands to look up at his face.

"_That all I had was my empty heart, and that chipped cup."_

She laughs, and it's almost the same little giggle that he remembers from the day she fell off the ladder.

"_You still have it?" _

"_Nearly beat your so-called father to death for it when he took it from me." _

"_My father? Oh, Yes, they tell me in this world he was the one that locked me up in here, in this weird new place."_ She scoots closer to him, just enough to sit beside his kneeling figure. Just enough to lay her head on his shoulder and he lays his head upon hers.

"_And __**he**__ tells me that it was to break up our sordid engagement."_

Mr. Gold marveled at that, at what little details this world spun for itself. For never in a million years would either he or the Evil Queen have thought to write that into the Dark Curse. He carefully wrapped an arm around Belle's shoulders, and she leans into him further.

"_When Sheriff Swan told me that I wanted to crack her across the head with my cane."_

"_Where is the Queen?"_ Belle suddenly asks suddenly and he hates that she is afraid, "_She must know that you have me."_

"_That is something I'll take care of"_ He smiled, lips curving into an expression resembling his former self more than his current identity. Oh yes, there were so many ways that he could take care of that. The first involved him pulling his strings with the city officials, ensuring that she remained on "house arrest." The second would involve something considerably bloodier.

"_Why does no one remember?"_ Belle shifts again so she can look up at him, and he, powerless against her and certain now that she is not an illusion, stares down with as much adoration as he can put in his face. _"And why do I remember? I remember everything, every moment and detail of my life before we came here, but very little of my life here."_

And Mr. Gold laughs outright. Ah yes, there it is again. Belle frowns, her eyes full of inquiry.

"_It's that damnable loophole in the curse."_ He explains.

"_What loophole?"_

"_That is something that I intend to find out my dear. But if it's one that allows us to be together in this miserable excuse of a world, it's one that I can work around."_ She still looks confused and slightly skeptical, but the rage, the pain that he had saw in her face was fading, and remnants of his former Belle were coming to the surface. And he does what he should have done that day at the Spinning Wheel when she first kissed him. He leans down and kisses her, here on the ground kneeling in her prison of the past 28 years, he kisses her at last.

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><p>Looking at her watch Emma decided that an hour was more than enough time for the two supposedly "betrothed" couple to speak. Pushing off from her perch leaning against the squad car and heading towards the hospital she comes to a head halt when Mr. Gold and RoseBelle (was it?) came limping around the corner leaning against each other. Supporting each other, and they looked… content. Emma stared at Mr. Gold; at the gentlest expression on his face that she has ever seen. Despite the fact that he looks like he's about to topple over, he looks more concerned about the woman at his side than himself. The first time Emma has ever seen him do that. They both look up and see her staring at them and Mr. Gold smirks.<p>

"_Ah Sheriff Swan, Thank you for bringing me back my fiancée."_

"_Did you say something about her being dead?"_

"_Ah, nah"_ Mr. Gold interrupts her _"Sorry Sheriff, you must had misheard that, as she is standing right next to me."_

"_Rupert,"_ RoseBelle at his side touches his arm, and he turns to look at her, his whole world before his eyes. Emma is again surprised at the expression on his face; she's seen it before, the same way David looks at Mary Margaret, the way that Sean looks at Ashley. Could it actually be?

"_Let's go home."_ And he nods.

"_Another time then Sheriff?"_ Mr. Gold asks Emma, his usual smug expression back on his face._"You're just going to have to wait to implement those proper procedures after all."_

"_Sure… another time."_ She turns and lets them pass, watching as the couple makes their way down the path and heads toward Mr. Gold's house. Thinking how strange fate can be when dealing the cards. And how lucky people are when they find a loophole.


End file.
